


Ask Those Who Know

by Doyle



Category: Little Mosque on the Prairie
Genre: Character Study, Female Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Doyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to give advice about giving advice, but Fatima likes a challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ask Those Who Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kattahj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattahj/gifts).



_Good morning, class! I'm Doctor Rayyan and I..._

No. Too kindergarten. These were grade ten kids; the most important thing, Amaar had said, was not to make them think she was talking down to them.

_Good morning, everyone. I'm Doctor Hamoudi and..._

That just sounded pompous.

Although, now she came to think about it, Amaar hadn't said anything about trying not to sound pompous.

Sighing, she crossed through another horrible opening line. Six for six, all duds. She wanted to rip out the page and crumple it into a ball, but she'd started to do that after terrible-opener-three and Fatima had just raised her eyebrows very slightly at her from behind the counter with a look that said _Do I come into your doctors' clinic and cook delicious samosas? No? Then why would you come into my diner and throw pieces of paper around?_ You didn't argue with that look.

Maybe if she opened with a joke...

By the time she'd written down and rejected numbers seven, eight and nine, she was halfway through her third dessert – she wasn't even hungry but she'd waitressed in the diner all the way through med school and she knew, oh boy, she _knew_ Fatima's opinions about people who came in to write and not eat – and Fatima was pouring her a fourth or fifth cup of coffee.

"Thanks." Rayyan paused, the cup halfway to her mouth and said, "Wait, this is decaf, right?"

Fatima looked at the pot in her hand, and then at its identical twin still sitting on the machine. "Yes," she said firmly. "This is definitely decaf, and if you find yourself still awake at five in the morning, it will be because of stress over this thing you are writing." She glanced at the page. "This thing you are _not_ writing," she amended.

Rayyan sighed. "It's really stupid," she said. "Principal Bowman asked if I could come in and speak to the grade ten PDHEC class..."

"You mean PDHECCCC," Fatima said. "Personal Development, Health Education, Civics, Citizenship, Community and Careers. Jamal complains about this ridiculous class all the time."

"Huh. You'd really think that you could cover civics, citizenship and community with one 'c'." Absently, she started to doodle a parade of curly c's on her notebook. "Anyway, I'm a doctor, I'm only ten years older than the kids, I'm from around here, I used to go to that school; I figured, a ten minute talk to give them some advice, how hard could that be? I give people advice all the time, whether they want to hear it or not."

"And you do that at your job, too," Fatima said benignly.

Rayyan pouted, mock-offended. "Yeah, okay. So I thought 'hey, this'll be so easy I can just go in there and wing it.' My biggest worry was picking an outfit that made me look smart and professional but still young and fun and approachable – I've narrowed it down to three different hijabs, by the way – but then I had to go and mention it to Amaar."

"What would Amaar know about choosing women's clothing?"

She held back from saying "Probably even less than he knows about picking men's clothing", because he was her friend and her imam and because Fatima was obviously thinking it anyway. Besides, she had to admit, Amaar was getting better; these days she hardly had to make any pointed comments before he phased a truly hideous shirt out of rotation. "I just told him I was giving a talk to Layla and Jamal's class and he said, great, he teaches kids that age all the time for his teen Quranic study group, so if I needed any advice..."

Fatima looked around at the almost-empty diner and eased into the empty seat at Rayyan's table, looking interested despite herself. "And then you asked him for his advice?" There was the slightest note of annoyance in the question, and a smile twitched at the corners of Rayyan's mouth. Sure, _she_ was the only one around here who thrived on telling people what to do.

"I said if he had any tips, that'd be great. So he gave me them. He gave me so many tips it made talking to teenagers sound like defusing a bomb in the dark. On a moving train. When the bomb's inside someone's _head_. Wait, he wrote some of this down." She leafed back to the first page of her notebook and read, "'Whatever you do, don't let them see your fear.' Why would you tell someone that? I didn't know I was supposed to have fear until he told me not to show fear!"

"They're only children," Fatima said, casting her eye down the list of Amaar's Dummies' Guide To Talking To Teens. "He makes them sound like ravenous wild beasts."

"They pretty much are," Rayyan muttered. "Um... except for Jamal." Fatima tipped her head modestly, acknowledging the compliment to her skills as a mother, and Rayyan added to herself _because I'm sure it was some other Jamal who talked the kids at the mosque into convincing Baber he'd turned invisible._ "It wasn't so long ago I was in high school myself, and I'm not proud of it now, but we were kind of rough on the teachers."

"When I was a schoolgirl we showed respect to all of our teachers."

"And to people who weren't teachers but still respected members of the community brought in to give a talk, right?"

There was a nostalgic look on Fatima's face. "Oh, no. Those were fair game."

Morose, but working on that not-showing-fear thing, Rayyan drained her coffee cup and ran her tongue over her teeth. The coffee really didn't taste like decaf.

"I have never taught children, but if you would like my advice..."

"Always," Rayyan said sincerely, and was rewarded with one of Fatima's real smiles, mouth and eyes both.

"In that case," Fatima said, "what would you tell yourself, if you were sixteen and sitting in that PDHECCCC classroom tomorrow?"

"Huh." Rayyan sat back in her chair. The table over there by the wall, she remembered, was where she'd always sat to do her homework after school, because it got the best light and Fatima didn't make so many does-this-look-like-the-library? complaints if you were only taking up a two-person table; and really, thinking back now, Fatima hadn't complained all that much.

She could see herself there now, frowning over her chemistry homework. Sixteen and skinny, still awkward from a late growth spurt, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail; smart and fierce and self-righteous and just burning to change the world, even with no real concept of how _huge_ the world was outside of Mercy.

What would she say to that girl, ten years later? Where would she even start?

"I'd tell her to stop praying for Sandi Sharpe's parents to get a new job somewhere at least three thousand miles away," she said. Fatima huffed a laugh. "And to stop worrying about whether she should try and get a date for prom just to fit in, even though she knows it wouldn't feel right." Sixteen-year-old Rayyan had figured that out on her own, she remembered. Kid was pretty smart, when she let herself be. "I'd tell her: listen to Fatima about wearing the hijab, because some day it's going to be more important to you than you understand right now. Actually, just listen to Fatima, period, she's usually right."

"Good advice," Fatima agreed.

"And I'd tell her that even when high school's driving her crazy and grown-ups are stupid and unfair and Sandi Sharpe's being a... word she won't use any more when she's older, in a couple of years she'll be at college with a bunch of brilliant, thoughtful, interesting people who just _get_ her, and that'll be amazing. That's where she'll get to figure out who she is."

"'School is full of stupid people,'" Fatima summarised, "'but work hard and you will go to college, which is better.'"

"Stand up in front of a grade ten class and tell them that high school's terrible? Principal Bowman would never invite me back." She folded her hands around her empty coffee cup and grinned. "But looking on the bright side, Principal Bowman would never invite me back..."

"Your speech will be fine." Fatima gathered up her coffee pot and her order pad and got to her feet. "Everything you said you would tell yourself at sixteen, you could say to the children in three important words."

"I know. 'Just be yourself.'" Rayyan smiled. "Nothing they won't have heard before, but some things are clichés because they're true, right?"

Fatima shrugged. "I was thinking 'listen to Fatima'," she said. "But I suppose yours works, too."


End file.
